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Motorists face petrol price rises today, after a 3c-a-litre government excise tax increase, although one oil company says it will at least cushion them from a small amount of extra GST.

BP spokesman Jonty Mills, who initially said the company intended "absorbing a component" of the increase, later yesterday defined that as just under half a cent of extra GST on top of the excise rise.

The company would pass on to motorists all of the basic 3c rise as "a government-implemented transport tax increase" while absorbing the extra GST on top of that.

Discount oil company Gull said it would wait for this morning to assess its margins before seeing if it could absorb some of the tax rise, if only for a day or so.

Today's excise duty rise pushes total tax on petrol to about 92.3c, or 42.7 per cent of the pump price. That includes 64.1c in excise and the rest in GST.

It follows a 2c excise rise in August last year and precedes more increases of 3c for each of the next two years, the proceeds of which all go into the National Land Transport Fund to pay for roads and public transport. Mr Stockdale said New Zealand still had the fifth-lowest fuel taxes of countries in the 34-member OECD.